Night Terrors
by Tesla2251
Summary: <html><head></head>After a few weeks, the animatronics have figured out that Mike Schmidt is a human and no longer wish to kill him. A somewhat un-easy friendship has formed between the band and the security guard. One night, Foxy has a "nightmare" of his past. This is my first FNaF fanfiction, so cut me some slack. Enjoy!</html>


**Okay, this is my first ever Five Nights at Freddy's fanfictions. If you don't like it, don't haze me. If there are any improvements I can make, PM me and I'll fix it up. Thank you**

"Ah man, I should be used to this by now," Mike said to himself, stifling a yawn. It was late at night for the night guard, as the clock on the opposite wall clicked down the minutes.

"Three o'clock, only three more hours to go," he yawned. As Mike rubbed his eyes, he remembered not too long ago his sleep was usually filled with nightmares of this place.

Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria had never had a good track record with the neighborhood. Rumors about the place hung around like an awful cloud and usually not many new customers came in through the door. On his first night on the job, he learned from a previous security guard that all the trouble seemed to begin in '87. Sometime during that year, the animatronic characters for the restaurant used to be able to move freely during the day. They had been allowed that privilege ever since the place first opened. It had been to show off the highly advanced technology and how it would make the dining experience something no one would forget.

Boy, they had no idea about the experience awaiting them in the summer of '87.

It had all been a normal day for Freddy's, children played, adults talked amongst themselves, and the animatronics kept a close eye on the children. But something went wrong with one of the animatronics. A fatal malfunction occurred which resulted in someone losing their frontal lobe. Mike had not been able to find any solid facts about the Bite of '87. All newspaper clippings were vague about who was injured, and which animatronic had done the actual biting. Internet sources were no help as very few people knew about it, let alone ever blogged about it. If the Bite of '87 was the only bad thing that had happened, things might have been okay for the pizzeria.

A year after the Bite, another awful event occurred at the restaurant. In the fall of '88, five children disappeared from Freddy Fazbear's. The police, and volunteers hunted around the pizzeria, and the surrounding area for a trace of the children. A few child witnesses claimed the children who disappeared were offered a party from someone in a Freddy Fazbear suit. The police searched and searched but no evidence of the perpetrator, or the bodies of the five missing children were ever found. Rumors about the pizzeria soon spread. Rumors claiming that the perpetrator had stuffed the remains of the five kids into the four animatronics and a spare suit backstage. Rumors that seemed all the more true when what looked like blood and mucus was seen by one parent around the eyes and mouths of Freddy and his band. It was all really pizza sauce and lubrication oil that hadn't been fully cleaned up from a repair the previous day.

But no one really believed what the owner had to say about it. Two nasty events had happened in a relatively short time at the pizzeria. It was believed that the owner or one of the staff was responsible for the accidents, and it was being covered up. Customers slowly became less and less as trust for the pizzeria became nonexistent. A few stayed as they believed those were nothing more than bad luck and honest accidents.

However rumors still spread when security guards began to either "disappear" or have to be admitted to mental hospitals at the rate of six or seven guards a month. The only customers to come back to the pizzeria now were customers too stubborn to leave, or new families that had moved in recently with no knowledge of the past events.

That changed after Mike Schmidt took up the job as nighttime security guard a month and a half ago. The college dropout had taken the job to pay off a rather large college debt. After which he would return to school and get a real job. At first, it had seemed that Freddy's was the best place in the world. The manager had hired him without so much as an interview. And when the place was closed, he could stuff himself on half eaten pizza and play a few arcade games in his spare time. Maybe create a high score the kids would try for decades to beat. After all, it's just a pizzeria, who'd really break in to begin with?

All hopes such as that were crushed the moment he arrived at midnight for his first night and he got that phone call. The person on the other end had claimed to be an ex-security guard for the place before him, and immediately told him what to expect. The animatronics would move about freely, and would assume he was a robot like them out of costume since they hadn't seen him before. Following that if they did manage to get him, they would shove him into one of the spare suits. The likely fate would be death since no human could comfortably wear that suit and survive. The moment Mike turned on the tablet and saw that Bonnie the bunny had vanished from his place on stage, he knew this was no prank. His life was really on the line.

After surviving a week of unimaginable horrors, the robots became used to seeing him arrive early and made the connection he wasn't an endoskeleton out of uniform. At least now they didn't bother coming into the office when he stayed up. Sometime they would make a mock run at him, he'd slam the door shut and on the other side of the windowed office they would be laughing at his fear. Mike guessed it was the only other excitement they had since all the guards never really spoke to them.

Bonnie, the first to move his first night was the first to actually come and talk to him. Strike up an actual conversation. Though Mike insisted he remain outside for the duration, the two had a rather nice discussion on the topic of how dark the place was at night. Soon the others followed suit and all seemed to enjoy the company of having Mike to talk to. He learned from Freddy how they had once been allowed to roam during the day and how they longed for an actual conversation. They had never noticed Mike coming in because they were always turned off to recharge their batteries for the required six hours of movement to prevent them from locking up.

"Otherwise," Chica had said, "We might have known you were a member of the staff all along."

Mike still couldn't comprehend how they couldn't tell the difference between a human and another robot, but he didn't press the matter since he didn't want to anger them. They were beginning to trust him more and more. The last thing he wanted was to return to his first week here.

Mike gave another yawn and decided to rest his eyes for a while. A clatter from down the hallway made his eyes jump open for a minute before he remembered what it was. It was Chica in the kitchen making noise again. He'd never figured out what she was doing in there his first week on the job since the kitchen camera only provided audio. Once he was certain he could come out of his office without being ambushed, he found just what the robot chicken did there all night.

Making pizza pies for tomorrow.

It was so surprising Mike had a hard time believing that this robot from the '80s could not only walk, talk, and carry an actual conversation, but also cook. He'd even said so when she told him. Chica just took that as a challenge and asked him what kind of pizza he would like, and she'd have one done by the time his shift ended. As promised, a rather tasty pepperoni and mushroom pizza arrived at his office at five in the morning. Apparently, in the restaurants early days, Chica took an interest in baking and learned the art over the years. The kitchen staff never asked where the pizzas came from but they enjoyed not having to work so hard during a particularly busy day.

Mike only wished she could be just a little more quiet when she worked. He leaned back in his chair and rested with his feet on the desk.

Suddenly a loud shriek pierced into Mike's conscious mind, waking him with a start. It wasn't that awful shriek the robots did just to make him jump, this was something else. The man snapped up, grabbed the tablet and scanned all the cameras. Fear that someone had broken in and the animatronics thought he was an endoskeleton out of costume made his heart race. The animatronics now knew he was a human staff member like all the others, but he worried they didn't make that connection to anyone here at night.

As the shrieks continued, Mike scanned the area. The stage was empty, but that wasn't anything new. Freddy and the band always were allowed to roam anywhere they wanted at night. The dining room showed Bonnie running to the left of the camera screen, followed by Chica and Freddy, all running to the left. The Pirates Cove camera showed the curtains were fully open, but Mike could see through the opening that Foxy was still there. His eyes glowed in the distance and moved around like he was on the floor. As he watched, Bonnie pushed his way into the frame and into the back of the closed attraction.

Curiosity got the better of Mike so he got up from his chair, grabbed his flashlight and walked down the dark hallway. As he walked up, Freddy looked up to see who was there, once he saw it was Mike he turned back to the scene in Pirates Cove. Mike gave a nod to the lead animatronic, and peered inside with his flashlight beam. Foxy was laying on his side while Bonnie looked down on him.

"What happened?" he asked to no one in particular.

"Foxy had a nightmare," Chica replied.

To say the least, Mike had never thought these robots could dream. They each had a distinct personality true, but dreams? A thought came back to him of an old book and he wondered if the Fazbear Band dreamed of electric sheep when they were powered down.

"Is this new?" he asked

Chica shook her head. "No, this happens every now and then. Sometimes it's worse than this."

"It happened again…," Foxy quivered.

"It was just a bad memory. It's in the past now," Bonnie replied. Foxy looked up at Bonnie with suddenly angry eyes.

"It's not in the past!" Foxy roared as he advanced toward Bonnie. "If it was, I'd never remember that day! It was the day I lost my whole purpose! The day we all lost our freedom! You! You, Chica, and Freddy are all lucky! You aren't exiled like me! Thrown into the brig to rot! Some days I wish I had been thrown out, and Pirates Cove torn down! Then I wouldn't have to deal with these awful memories, or this constant feeling of loneliness!"

Bonnie was now cowering as the angry pirate looked ready to gore him with his hook. Mike felt ready to dash back to the safety of his security booth. Freddy stepped up and gave Foxy a stern glare.

"We all know Foxy. We know you are sorry, and lonely. But the past can't be changed. We can only live with it as it is. But it's how we live with it that affects others in the now," he said, before turning away and waking back to the stage. Foxy gave a low growl as he sat himself back down on his chest of plastic treasure.

"He's right you know," Chica said.

"Isn't he always right?" Foxy said sarcastically, his glowing eyes rolling upwards.

"You know we are here for you, Foxy. And it's not just us three anymore," she continued, giving Mike a gentle nudge to the side.

Bonnie gave a tired sigh, and left Pirates Cove, saying back, "If you push away your friends, then you are truly alone."

Chica reached up and gave Mike a gentle nudge. "Let's go, Mike. Give him some time to think on his own."

"Okay," he sighed as he turned and walked away.

"Don't worry about him too much," Chica said with a cheerier tone.

"He seemed pretty upset," Mike replied, glancing back towards Pirates Cove. "But I understand how he feels."

"Maybe since you've survived for almost nine weeks you can convince the manager to have him re-introduced to the show?" Chica asked, hopefully.

"I don't know," Mike said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "He doesn't strike me as the kind of person who takes suggestions from others. Especially not the person who wasn't supposed to survive a more than a week here."

Chica gave a nervous chuckle as they had fallen on that unpleasant topic. "Say, hungry? I have a pizza in the oven if you're interested."

"Thanks, but no thanks, Chica," Mike chuckled. "I had a rather large dinner with my parents earlier."

"Oh, okay," the robot chicken replied. "Just give a shout if you got a sudden craving."

"I'll do that," Mike said with a grin as Chica hurried back to the kitchen.

Mike returned to the security office and began reading through the sports section, looking at the cameras every now and then. Freddy was sweeping the stage of crumpled paper plates and cups. Bonnie was tuning his guitar, trying to make sure one string sounded just so. And of course, Chica was in the kitchen.

"Uh… Mike?" asked a voice.

Mike looked up from his paper to see Foxy standing in the door way. Instinct almost made Mike slam the door shut but he relented. He sat the paper down and looked up at the pirate fox.

"Yes, Foxy? What is it?"

The robotic vulpine looked away, as if embarrassed about what he was about to ask. "Can… can I stay up with you, even for a while…?"

"Sure, but why? Why me out of all the others?"

Foxy sighed as sat himself down in the door. "It's different. Mike, I haven't seen another living soul besides the janitor when he comes back into yon Cove to wipe up the dust. Since we realized you are not an endoskeleton out of uniform, these nights feel different. Since we can no longer interact with the children anymore, it's very lonely even when you have three other animatronics to talk to. Having you around, it reminds us of the old days when this place was in its prime. Before… I messed it all up."

Mike nodded as he thought about it from their perspective. They had been built to make children happy, and for the longest time they couldn't completely fulfill that directive. Foxy even more so; banished to the area he'd had made all for him and him alone, with no one to talk to or even look to for eighteen hours a day. It didn't make up for all they had done to security guards before him, but he was slowly looking past that now. And he now knew how Foxy truly felt about it. He was a robot, they all were. But they were more advanced than any robot scientists had built. They had human emotions, complex emotions you can't program in or explain with computer code. Foxy was truly sorry about what he'd done, and what he'd in turn caused to the others.

"I forgive you, Foxy." Mike said, reaching over and patting the pirates shoulder. "I know it wasn't really your fault. It's a shame the manager let your maintenance slide and this happened. To blame you as the true problem was wrong."

Foxy gave a tinny sigh.

Mike added quickly, "Of course you can stay up with me. I suppose I could use some company."

Foxy's ears perked up and if he could smile he would have.

"Really?"

"Of course. It's really lonely here in the office with no one else to talk to."

As the clock chimed four, the two talked about the restaurants past, and it's hopefully brighter future.


End file.
